Meanings of Authentic Learning Scenarios: A Study of the Interplay Between Higher Education and Employability of Higher Education Graduates

The study is a part of the Erasmus+ project Skill-UP: Matching graduates’ skills and labour world demands through authentic learning scenarios. Higher education provides many different opportunities for students’ learning, though there are limited possibilities for them to learn through collaboration in authentic learning experiences. The article reports on a study which investigates meanings of authentic learning scenarios in higher education in relation to the employability of higher education graduates in a course within the bachelor’s programme in study and career guidance at Stockholm University, Sweden. Pre- and post-questionnaires on the employability skills of new graduates were completed by final year students. In a focus-group interview, higher education teachers discussed how they achieve authenticity in these learning scenarios. The course helped the students improve their employability skills such as creative thinking, teamwork, subject-specific skills, communication and interpersonal skills, and analytical thinking. The teachers’ conclusion was to keep the authentic learning scenario in the course and further develop the teaching instructions. We consider that authentic learning scenarios are of considerable benefit to higher education in relation to the employability of graduates. The conclusions drawn from the study are that the intervention with authentic learning experiences supports students to improve several employability skills. The teachers’ deduction is to keep the authentic learning scenarios in their teaching at university and further develop the teaching instructions which shows that the authentic learning scenarios can support university teachers to improve their course design in higher education by incorporating the model of authentic learning.